Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

British businessman and dedicated angler Paul Torday has found a way to combine a novel about fishing and all that it means with a satire involving politics, bureaucrats, the Middle East, the war in Iraq, and a sheikh who is really a mystic. Torday makes it all work in a most convincing way using memos, interviews, e-mails, and letters in clever juxtaposition.

Dr. Alfred Jones is a fisheries scientist in Great Britain who is called upon to find a way to introduce salmon into the desert in Yemen. The Yemeni sheikh will spare no expense to see this happen. He says:

It would be a miracle of God if it happened. I know it... If God wills it, the summer rains will fill the wadis... and the salmon will run the river. And then my countrymen... all classes and manner of men--will stand side by side and fish for the salmon. And their natures, too, will be changed. They will feel the enchantment of this silver fish... and then when talk turns to what this tribe said or that tribe did... then someone will say, "Let us arise, and go fishing."

Such is the sheikh's vision. He tells Alfred: "Without faith, there is no hope. Without faith, there is no love." Alfred has no religious faith and has been mired in a loveless marriage for twenty years, so these words seem fantastic to him.

Alfred and Sheikh Muhammad connect immediately through their mutual love of fishing, despite Alfred's misgivings about the viability of the project. The Prime Minister's flack man tells Alfred that he must persevere and succeed because Great Britain needs some positive connection to the Middle East, something other than a failing, flailing war. These kinds of political alliances are always shaky at best, and when things start to go sideways, allies have a way of disappearing. Alfred soldiers on, with the help of the lovely Harriet, Sheikh Muhammad's land agent, and the project is readied for opening day, when the Sheikh and the Prime Minister will have a 20-minute photo op.

All of the faith and good will in the world cannot overcome the forces ranged against them, bringing tragedy to everyone involved. Despite all, Alfred's interior life is changed immeasurably. He says in the end: "I believe in it, because it is impossible." --Valerie Ryan

Dr Alfred Jones has many reasons to be content with his life.  His latest paper ?Effects of Increased Water Acidity on the Caddis Fly Larva’ looks set to cause a stir on the pages of Trout & Salmon, his job as a fisheries scientist is satisfactory, and he and his wife, Mary, have just celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary ? for which she gave him a replacement electric toothbrush.
So why does he feel as though something is missing?
When he is asked to become involved in a project to create a salmon river in the Highlands of the Yemen, Fred rejects the idea as absurd. But the proposal catches the eye of several senior British politicians, who feel it might distract the media’s attention from the less welcome stories coming out of the Middle East. It’s not long before the wheels of government start spinning, and the publicity-savvy Prime Minister is talking about the project on television. Fred finds himself forced to set aside his research and instead figure out how to fly ten thousand salmon to a desert country ? and persuade them to swim there.
The project is the brainchild of a Yemeni sheikh: a devout and wealthy man, whose love of salmon fishing and whose fervent, unwavering conviction that the impossible can be made possible, eventually, and astonishingly, inspires Fred, overpowering all his rational objections ? and infuriating his wife.
When Fred meets Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, the sheikh’s elegant and beautiful land agent, the cracks that have begun to form in his carefully managed existence grow even wider, and as they both embark on an extraordinary journey of faith ? and fishing ? the diffident Dr Jones will discover a sense of belief, and a capacity for love, and for heroism, that surprises himself, and all who know him.